TELEVISION REVIEWS : <i> ‘BLUFFING IT’ </i>

Despite the fact that it is a hard-core message movie sent out to help eradicate adult illiteracy, ABC’s “Bluffing It” has many good things going for it (Sunday at 9 p.m. on Channels 7, 3, 10, 42).

Not the least of them is Dennis Weaver, who is exceptional as Jack Dugan, a 52-year-old Bostonian factory foreman whose inability to read or write beyond a fourth-grade level finally catches up to him. When he’s offered a promotion that will require him to operate a computer, Dugan rejects it (without explaining why) and is ultimately fired.

Dugan is a realistically constructed but not always sympathetic character who’s been able to fake his way through life, thanks in large part to loyal wife (Janet Carroll), who reads everything for him while protecting his secret even from his own children.

As he begins the hell of seeking a new job and eventually decides to enter an adult reading program, he wages psychological warfare with himself and nearly everyone around him, especially son Rusty (Robert Leonard), who thinks his dad hates him because he never reads his homework papers.

Writer/director Jim Sadwith has dreamed up more than his share of typical TV movie contrivances to advance the plot and heighten the drama. The father/son conflict is beaten into the ground and Dugan taking a job as truck driver (though he can’t read road signs) is as irresponsible as it is implausible.

But such flaws are more than compensated by an excellent cast and an intelligent, often touching script that includes a clever but subtle handling of the racism issue.

“Bluffing It” was produced by Linda Jonsson as part of Capital Cities/ABC and the Public Broadcasting Service’s Project Literacy campaign.